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California bans private prisons

theguardian.com

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Re: California bans private prisons

#381

Post by the-pigeon »

celticmusic wrote: post #237
jvm wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic to see the correct take get downvoted. If anyone's interested in actually learning about the causes of mass incarceration, I'd strongly recommend John Pfaff's _Locked In_: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01L6SLKK8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?... In short: a) It's not the war on drugs. b) It's not private prisons. c) It's not sentencing laws. You could get rid of all of those and America would still lead the "free" worl…

The government isn't going to be lobbying itself to pass minimum occupancy laws. The motivations are better. No one is saying it's going to solve world hunger, but it's a good first step.

Just being government run is just one ingredient in a successful prison system.

Next you need to find good people that strongly want to accomplish the organization's goals. And who are smart enough to actually do that.

And you need to make sure those leaders have adequate funding and time to make the necessary changes. As well as having a legal system that is at least half-way working correctly.

Re: California bans private prisons

#382

Post by Mandys23 »

jjeaff wrote: post #309
c0nducktr wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. Americans spend twice as much for healthcare as other first world countries.

So he's incorrect because you think if we socialize medicine what we spend now will go down?

He’s incorrect because he has misquoted the evidence. Canada’s wait time data is restricted to medically necessary but non-emergent procedures. It is inaccurate to say that millions of people are dying while waiting for treatment. The average wait time for a cancer patient to be seen is 3 weeks. Average. Remember, not everyone with cancer is dying.

I appreciate the value of debate, but i ask that you please do your homework before you start citing the evidence

Re: California bans private prisons

#383

Post by chroma »

birdyrooster wrote: post #372
chroma wrote: post #109

I think private prisons could work if: - Convicts could choose whether to be sent to a public or private prison. - Private prisons had financial incentives for post-incarceration behavior. Eg: If their prisoner recidivism rate after 3 years was 10% lower than the average public prison, they would get a 20% bonus. Those changes would create enough competition and align incentives such that we could see some real innov…

This is incredibly easy to game. A bad actor would create a prison which focused only on convict selection, and fully ignored the bonus for recidivism and pumped people through. Prison not only needs to be ethical for individuals, but for the rest of society.

Why would private prisons be allowed to refuse specific inmates? State prisons can't do that.

Re: California bans private prisons

#384

Post by m0zg »

chroma wrote: post #109

I think private prisons could work if: - Convicts could choose whether to be sent to a public or private prison. - Private prisons had financial incentives for post-incarceration behavior. Eg: If their prisoner recidivism rate after 3 years was 10% lower than the average public prison, they would get a 20% bonus. Those changes would create enough competition and align incentives such that we could see some real innov…

>> Private prisons had financial incentives for post-incarceration behavior.

I bet if you just paid the felons the same amount they cost to incarcerate, relocated them away from their peer group, and forbid contact, a lot of them wouldn't re-offend, like, ever. It's down to basically a combination of poverty and peer pressure (as in "just when I thought I got out, they pull me back in") most of the time.

This is sort of how exile worked in Russia before the revolution: nonviolent offenders were sent to Siberia and simply lived there. No hard labor or anything, no incarceration per se, but you couldn't leave, and all your correspondence was subject to review and censorship.

Re: California bans private prisons

#385

Post by chroma »

codedokode wrote: post #373
chroma wrote: post #109

I think private prisons could work if: - Convicts could choose whether to be sent to a public or private prison. - Private prisons had financial incentives for post-incarceration behavior. Eg: If their prisoner recidivism rate after 3 years was 10% lower than the average public prison, they would get a 20% bonus. Those changes would create enough competition and align incentives such that we could see some real innov…

> Private prisons had financial incentives for post-incarceration behavior. Eg: If their prisoner recidivism rate after 3 years was 10% lower than the average public prison, they would get a 20% bonus. Then the best strategy would be to make sure that the prisoners die as soon as possible.

Are you suggesting that the private prisons would murder convicts soon after they're released? That's uhh... that's just a little bit illegal and people who commit murder tend to get caught and imprisoned for a very long time.

But let's assume that the private prisons could somehow keep getting away with murder. If anyone ever looked at the stats and saw that people released from private prisons had much shorter life expectancy, then convicts would choose state prisons. Then the private prison's revenue dries up and they go out of business.

Re: California bans private prisons

#386

Post by packet_nerd »

vkou wrote: post #47
danaliv wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this something that people against private prisons believe...that they just release all the prisoners when they close the prison? There are a few different strains of thought when it comes to opposition to private prisons, but I believe the common denominator is that they create a perverse incentive. They turn prisons into businesses—the more prisoners, the better. So while there are definitely people who want t…

> There are a few different strains of thought when it comes to opposition to private prisons, but I believe the common denominator is that they create a perverse incentive. They turn prisons into businesses—the more prisoners, the better. The same criticism can be applied towards forced prison labour, and yet, it is explicitly permitted by the thirteenth amendment. (And is commonly used in state prisons.) Just becau…

Agreed. However, in terms of perverse economic incentives I think the private for-profit prisons are a much much larger problem than prison work programs. They are not bringing in anything on the scale of what private prison systems bring in from the government. Also, least a few people claim to have benefited personally from the work programs.

Re: California bans private prisons

#387

Post by pariahHN »

kenhwang wrote: post #285
arcticbull wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm also in favor of socialized medicine for basically exactly these reasons. Shocker, I know. The system works! I grew up in socialized medicine, and you get sick, you go to the hospital, they treat you and you leave. There's no step 4. Why Americans continue to willingly subject themselves to these torturous systems is beyond me. It's all in y'alls control.

There's a choice component to health. Sure, you can lose the genetic or environmental lottery and just be unhealthy. Or you can choose to be unhealthy. Smoking, drinking, drugs, poor diet, lack of exercise. These are by far the biggest contributors to healthcare cost and they cost absolutely nothing to prevent. Many people just don't take responsibility for their health, and many others in the US don't like the idea…

But there is a solution to that. Anything that can be easily identified as being the result of someone's own choices they are on the hook for and/or can get insurance for. Yes, these things would have to be enumerated, with some things debated and others refined, but insurance companies didn't seem to have any trouble enumerating what they will or will not cover and this isn't any different. Most if not all of the issues with implementing a system like this will be things that have been done before.

Re: California bans private prisons

#388

Post by Forbo »

archie2 wrote: post #347
arcticbull wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed]

The information is readily available - you could have taken 5 seconds and searched for it yourself instead of leaving a sarcastic unconstructive comment. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wa...

The site you link to mentions nothing about deaths nor about people going to the United States for treatment, including in the linked PDFs. Perhaps you could have tried to address the claims made instead of leaving a sarcastic unconstructive comment.

Re: California bans private prisons

#389

Post by kenhwang »

gerbilly wrote: post #302
kenhwang wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a choice component to health. Sure, you can lose the genetic or environmental lottery and just be unhealthy. Or you can choose to be unhealthy. Smoking, drinking, drugs, poor diet, lack of exercise. These are by far the biggest contributors to healthcare cost and they cost absolutely nothing to prevent. Many people just don't take responsibility for their health, and many others in the US don't like the idea…

> many others in the US don't like the idea of subsidizing other people's healthcare for preventable or self-inflicted health complications. Who cares really? It costs a bit more to care for people in dollars and cents, but it fosters a better society, which everyone benefits from. Another case of people wanting to be freeriders.

Apparently enough people care enough. Otherwise this wouldn't be such a contentious debate topic.

Re: California bans private prisons

#390

Post by goalieca »

chroma wrote: post #109

I think private prisons could work if: - Convicts could choose whether to be sent to a public or private prison. - Private prisons had financial incentives for post-incarceration behavior. Eg: If their prisoner recidivism rate after 3 years was 10% lower than the average public prison, they would get a 20% bonus. Those changes would create enough competition and align incentives such that we could see some real innov…

Why do we need competition for prisons?
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